Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

nasa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 61 posts

Re: NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

#31

Post by boringuser2 »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #28
boringuser2 wrote: post #23

What's up with all of these crazy technical developments after a period of relative stagnation? Aside from it being merely random or selection bias, it's plausible that there's some kind of AI assist beyond what we know happening behind the scenes.

I said a few days ago that it is very likely 3 letter agencies and other organisations have had GPT4 equivalent models for some time now. It doesn’t seem that unlikely that some branches of the US gov would have much more advanced models.

You're right, it kind of makes me think AGI won't come about from LLMs.

Re: NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

#32

Post by getoffmycase »

valine wrote: post #29
boringuser2 wrote: post #23

What's up with all of these crazy technical developments after a period of relative stagnation? Aside from it being merely random or selection bias, it's plausible that there's some kind of AI assist beyond what we know happening behind the scenes.

Maybe ChatGPT is helping cut through bureaucratic tape. I know it’s helped me become much more persuasive in my communication. If your goal is to convince the US government to spend money testing your rotational detonation engine, your odds of success go up if an LLM helps you write the email.

This has to be an April Fool's day joke right?

Re: NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

#33

Post by sxyuan »

boringuser2 wrote: post #23

What's up with all of these crazy technical developments after a period of relative stagnation? Aside from it being merely random or selection bias, it's plausible that there's some kind of AI assist beyond what we know happening behind the scenes.

These baseless speculations about ChatGPT are somewhat ironic given that the article itself alludes to what has unlocked this specific advance:

"The RDRE achieved its primary test objective by demonstrating that its hardware – made from novel additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, designs and processes – could operate for long durations while withstanding the extreme heat and pressure environments generated by detonations."

It's much easier to imagine that steady advances in manufacturing, computational modeling, and "mundane" technologies like that are contributing to progress like what's described in this article... Rather than some super secret AI assistant.

Please, folks, don't give up on reading just because computers can do it too now. :)

Re: NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

#34

Post by 7thaccount »

getoffmycase wrote: post #32
valine wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe ChatGPT is helping cut through bureaucratic tape. I know it’s helped me become much more persuasive in my communication. If your goal is to convince the US government to spend money testing your rotational detonation engine, your odds of success go up if an LLM helps you write the email.

This has to be an April Fool's day joke right?

I hope haha.

Re: NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

#35

Post by Tommstein »

kossTKR wrote: post #11
mdorazio wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up to 25% improvement compared to conventional rocket engines according to the Wikipedia page. I haven’t found an actual ISP measurement for this NASA engine, though.

25% sounds super disappointing from a laymans perspective and not very "revolutionary" in the grand scheme of time and space. Can't wait until AI will be able to iterate advanced engineering designs in simulation space at incredible speed.

Agree that 25% doesn't sound very exciting or revolutionary, but computers have been used to design space-related stuff for a while, for example, https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/nmp/st5/TECHNOLOGY/antenna.html . I would be surprised if no one had tried it with propulsion systems yet.

Re: NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

#36

Post by slowmovintarget »

getoffmycase wrote: post #32
valine wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe ChatGPT is helping cut through bureaucratic tape. I know it’s helped me become much more persuasive in my communication. If your goal is to convince the US government to spend money testing your rotational detonation engine, your odds of success go up if an LLM helps you write the email.

This has to be an April Fool's day joke right?

Date on the article is 25 Jan 2023, so seemingly not.

Re: NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

#37

Post by throwbadubadu »

boringuser2 wrote: post #23

What's up with all of these crazy technical developments after a period of relative stagnation? Aside from it being merely random or selection bias, it's plausible that there's some kind of AI assist beyond what we know happening behind the scenes.

OH MY.... Came here to say "Wow, this is so much more exciting than the 123th LLM/GPT and the 2746th "this is my experience / use case with AI" (sorry) "but sure, some one will come and claim that: GPT-8 would have designed that alone given the right prompt!!" ... and then need to read this. :(

Re: NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

#38

Post by robotfelix »

> to deep space destinations, such as the Moon

I feel woefully underqualified to call out NASA's PR team, but I don't _think_ the Moon qualifies for most definitions of "deep space".

Exciting news all the same, and I can only assume they meant to suggest that RDRE propulsion is useful for destinations that are nearer too!

Re: NASA validates revolutionary propulsion design for deep space missions

#39

Post by feanaro »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #28
boringuser2 wrote: post #23

What's up with all of these crazy technical developments after a period of relative stagnation? Aside from it being merely random or selection bias, it's plausible that there's some kind of AI assist beyond what we know happening behind the scenes.

I said a few days ago that it is very likely 3 letter agencies and other organisations have had GPT4 equivalent models for some time now. It doesn’t seem that unlikely that some branches of the US gov would have much more advanced models.

Why do people always say this? It's almost like a thought-terminating cliche. Thousands of companies competing with each other were not able to do it earlier, but the NSA always has better everything, by definition.
Post reply on HN